


Safe

by redfiona



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur tries to keep them safe, even while it's all unraveling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

Time winds from different points.

The last time Arthur saw her, Mal was fine. Rosy, even. It was a week after Philippa's birthday, and she and Dom were planning something. Something huge that they weren't going to let Arthur in on. From what Miles said, it was something experimental. If they weren't telling Arthur it meant that it was experimental and dangerous, which was exactly the kind of thing he needed to know about. Because Dom had no sense of danger, and Mal would do anything to keep Dom happy, and Dom liked to keep her interest, and Mal was always interested in cutting edge and dangerous [her 21st birthday present was a sky-dive]. They needed someone to keep them safe.

That was where it started to unwind.

Seeing her now, it was odd. She was healthy enough; she'd gone to see a doctor on Miles's suggestion, just a bit disorientated, like she was just waking up, but constantly. She wouldn't tell him what had happened, told him that it was alright, that this would pass soon, and then she'd been fine. Dom wasn't saying anything either. Arthur had pieced together a little about what had happened, they'd got a little lost in dreams, but nothing major, according to Dom. Mal just smiled, weakly, when asked.

There was nothing, no-one, to stop it unwinding.

The next time Arthur saw her, Mal looked frazzled. Not physically, Mal was never anything less than perfectly turned out, Arthur even took her suit shopping with him sometimes because she was the only other person whose taste he trusted. It was something deeper, like some of the guys he knew that were back from the war. 

Arthur didn't know how to help her, because there was something wrong, and she wouldn't talk about it. If Mal didn't want to do something she didn't do it. He tried asking, and he tried pleading. He tried tricking her into it. Arthur even tried to cajole her into it by saying he'd show her the work he'd done on her favourite layout, all Escher waterfalls, and birds and adventure. She turned him down flat. She didn't use the dream machines since whatever happened. She said she was scared of forgetting what was real. Arthur didn't push her after that.

Someone had to wind it back up.

When he saw her next, she was dead. Closed casket funeral. Closed off Dom. Police closing in. He should have tried harder, stopped them at the start or, more realistically, helped them at the start, because when Mal decided to something, it happened. Since he couldn't do that, he's going to help Dom with whatever he's planning to do. He can't keep Mal safe anymore.


End file.
